The Cabrera Lab Podcast #89: Think It Through: Boundaries, Guilt, and Getting Your Time Back
Oct 15, 2025
Drs. Derek and Laura Cabrera tackle the issue of overcommitting and the guilt that drives it. They reveal a self-made loop involving fear and misplaced responsibility that leads to burnout. Listeners learn to set genuine boundaries without succumbing to guilt and to challenge assumptions about others’ perceptions. Tools like the RAR Quad help distinguish between reaction and intentional action. Plus, the 'two-by-four guy' metaphor illustrates how external pressures can hinder personal agency. By diagramming their mental models, individuals can reclaim their time and energy.
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Overcommitment Is A Self-Made Loop
- Overcommitment often comes from a self-made mental loop of guilt, fear, and assumed judgments.
- Derek Cabrera and Laura Cabrera show the loop causes exhaustion, falling behind, and resentment when boundaries fail.
Test Your Assumptions About Others
- Distinguish between what others actually think and what you think they think.
- Test assumptions: lack of evidence often means you're projecting rather than seeing reality.
Fix The Belief, Not The Stopper
- When boundary attempts fail, examine the underlying belief driving the failure before patching the symptom.
- Break the dependency that makes boundary-setting conditional on imagined judgments.